The boy said he was outside when he saw a Russian drone flying toward where his younger siblings and friends were playing. It was a drone equipped with an optical fiber, which gives it the advantage that it cannot be disrupted by means of radio-electronic warfare. This drone pulls the strings behind it.
“I saw him start to turn. I just crouch down, I look – and he flies up. I say, ‘Okay, 15 seconds and I’m pulling.’ My uncle ran out and shouted: ‘Twitch.’ I jerked and saw that he flew up because he was losing control and was starting to fall. We have already prepared that it will explode now. But the drone fell about 100 to 150 meters from us into the bushes,” Anatoly told the Ukrainian station.
Well-known Ukrainian soldiers taught the boy how to properly destroy an optical fiber. “We just went to their forest to cut wood. We were friends. We cut wood, and when we cut down the last tree, there was fiber on it. And he showed it to me and said, ‘In rare cases, break it.’ And the instinct already worked, because there were three of my (siblings) and three others who were not mine,” Anatolij described.
The threads through which the drone is controlled extend behind it, for example, even low above the ground, so they can be within arm’s reach. By tearing them off, the operator loses control over the machine and it falls to the ground. If it is equipped with an explosive, it may explode at the point of impact.
Anatolij added that he did such a thing for the first time and that he was afraid. However, fear for his loved ones prevailed. “I’m not afraid of almost anything anymore,” he declared.
Anatolij’s father Volodymyr also commented on the situation. “We were all scared. My mother and I. He managed it mentally, the pimp. So he’s growing into a man,” he let himself be heard.
